JavaScript Section - 2000 and before

The history of the old JavaScript Section, 2000 and before. I disabled the internal links since they
reflect the old site structure.

21 December 2000: Finished the DOM trilogy by writing an introduction to the new W3C
Level 1 DOM.

20 December 2000: Created a
Version 5 Links page.
Updated my Frame Busting script because someone succeeded in
breaking it. If you copied the script, please do so again. It should be 100% fail-safe now (except
in Netscape 6).

18 December 2000: Created the
Import XML script that imports an XML document, extracts data
from it and creates a table to display the data. Works only in Version 5 browsers, of course.

14 December 2000: I get so many questions that I can't answer about the Compatibility Table
for the W3C DOM that I've decided to
found a mailing list about the practical implementation of
the W3C DOM. Join it if you're interested in making the DOM work.

12 December 2000: Again a major update of the
Level 1 DOM Methods and properties page. I added Opera 5 and Konqueror compatibility
info and did some extra tests.

11 December 2000: Added
Dreamweaver patch code to make sure DW also shows DHTML in Netscape 6.
You just have to replace one function by my patch and it works again.

7 December 2000: Modification of the
mouseover script to partially solve the as yet unexplained
Netscape 6 mouseover bug. I hope this is a temporary solution.

6 December 2000: Opera 5 has been released, and it's a lot better than 4.02 . Most of the
bugs I noted earlier have been solved. See also the
Browsers page for detailed information.
Major modification of the
browser detect script. The page now includes a bit on
browser strings and why they are as they are.

4 December 2000: Major update of the Level 1 DOM
Methods and properties page. Netscape has finally produced a
document specifiying the new DOM methods and properties. Although
this document is not completely trustworthy (it is guilty of excessive Explorer-bashing), it still mentions
some methods and properties I didn't know about.

27 November 2000: Many minor changes. Updated iCab compatibility, added notes about the
onError Inline event handler on an IMG tag, and much
much more.

17 November 2000: Added a page
about this site, myself, the sponsor and the people who
help me.

14 November 2000: Finally:
Release of Netscape 6! Discussion on the
browser page, where I also give some bug notes.

The release of Netscape 6 started a period of feverish research, mainly on the
Version 5 browsers and their capabilities.

12 November 2000: Many surprises this week.
- A while ago I asked the company I work for,
NetlinQ Framfab,
to sponsor this site. Part of the deal was that a designer would revise my style sheet.
I completely forgot about it, due to lots of distractions, until I was presented with the
new design of my site, the one you see now. I like it and will use it from now on.
- After that, I was warned that a new browser has appeared on the scene:
Konqueror, the browser/file
manager of the Linux
KDE Desktop Environment. I tested
it and I'm very impressed. Where Gecko, Opera and iCab crawl along, Konqueror takes one
mighty stride and is nearly at level with them. It's still in beta, but it already supports bits
of DHTML and even of Version 5 scripting. See the
browsers page for more details.
- Finally I discovered that not only it is possible to see what text the user has selected with
his mouse, it's even very simple. See the new
Get selection page for the details.

Here I implemented a new design.

4 November 2000: Added a page about the Level 0 DOM that's supported by all JavaScript browsers.
Updated the old DOM page, which is now called
Intermediate DOMs.
Added a bit of script to solve the Netscape 4 resizeTo bug to the
Window manipulation page.

25 October 2000: For the first time, I have tried to write a page that not only explains
how something is done, but that also helps new scripters to really understand what's going on by
applying their knowledge: the brand new Introduction to frames page, which includes an exercise.

19 October 2000: Added a page about
Window manipulation: how to read out and change window size.

4 October 2000: I've grown so sick and tired of Opera 4 that I decided to maintain a
bug list. View it for the gory details, especially
for the stuff Opera says it supports but in fact doesn't support.

3 October 2000: Small addition to the
mouseover script: How to do mouseovers when
the images are in layers in Netscape 4.

30 September 2000: Added two related scripts to the Frames and Windows category:
the
Customized framesets script that you can use to load
a specific page into a general frameset and the
Frame Busting script that gets you out of someone
else's frameset.
I use a script on this site that combines these two functions.
My research for this script also discovered a
minor security hole in Opera 4.

4 September 2000: The Solaris test station is finally operational. I've added compatibility info
for Netscape 4 and Explorer 5 on Solaris wherever necessary. See also the
browsers page.

2 September 2000: Added the Dynamic options page to take the place of the old
Transfer Options page, which has moved to the Archives. The new page contains a general description
of creating and deleting options, as well as a much needed script.
Many minor changes.

23 August 2000: After much hesitation I decided to publish the two Event pages
I have written: the general Events page that sums up all events and gives you a chance to play with them and the
Netscape 4 specific page that corrects many mistakes found in the official documentation
and other tutorials.

8 August 2000: I made a new
Version 5 JavaScript
page with all methods and properties of the V5 DOM I know. No explanations yet, just a list
for people who already roughly know how the new DOM works.
Gecko M17 on the loose. It's much better than all previous ones. See the
browsers page for more info.

3 August 2000: Studied Opera 4.02 . One bug solved: the opener that's crucial for
cross-window JavaScripting again works. Other than that: still
a bad browser.
Found a rare document that describes JScript/VBScript in Explorer 3 (75 K zipfile
of a Word document).

26 July 2000: Some more facts about the last modified script: Explorer 4- gives a date several hours too
early.

15 July 2000: As a birthday present the Internet gave me Opera 4.01 . Unfortunately it really
isn't worth the trouble. The major bugs are not fixed, no better support for DHTML. See the
browsers page for more details.
I fixed the browser detect so that it overrides Opera's attempts at
disguising itself.

11 July 2000: Did some heavy research into Date and Time scripting. This resulted in a new page
Introduction to Date and Time.
The last modified script has also been changed subtly but surely.
The new year calculation should give less bugs than the old one, the script works in Opera 3 and I found
out that it matters what server your site is on. If you have already copied this script, please do so again.
It should be bug free now.

5 July 2000: Found out that the 'final version' of Opera 4
has been released. I'm not very impressed. See the browsers page for more details.

28 June 2000: Found a way to make the cross-window script work in Netscape 2. Very simple and
elegant solution that I saw on a page somewhere.

19 June 2000: Again a new Opera 4: Beta 6. Also Mozilla M16 is on the loose.
See the browsers page for more details.

18 June 2000: Added a Building Blocks page about strings.
Improved the style sheet.

14 June 2000: Tested Opera 4 Beta 5 on Windows. It's the first browser outside Netscape and Explorer to
really support DHTML: the Beta 5 on Windows supports the basic cross-browser DHTML script. Tech Preview 4 for Linux crashes
misrably, however. See the browsers page for more info.

28 May 2000: I combined the old No Support page and paragraphs on several other pages to create
the support detection page that explains what support detection is
and why you should use it.

9 May 2000: Added an explanation of the last modified script. However, this explanation does not explain
why the millennium bug seems to work differently on document.lastModified than on the current system
time. More research is necessary.

7 May 2000: Added a script that writes out the last modification of each page on this site.
Of course I had to modify all pages to put the script in, so they were all modified today.
You can view the last modified script but be warned that it isn't yet fully tested. Also
there is no explanation yet.

4 May 2000: Gathered all my courage and did a re-install of Explorer 3 on Mac. This browser
is even more horrible than I thought! It does not support any event handlers (onmouseover, onsumbit,
onclick) so any script that depends on an event doesn't work. See the browsers page for the gory details. Also added compatibility
info where necessary.

3 May 2000: Solved the Flash detect problems by doing a little VBScript hacking.
Works in Explorer on Windows now.
Found out that the next release of the Konqueror browser/file manager for the KDE environment on Linux will support
JavaScript. As soon as any version is downloadable I'll discuss it on this site.

30 April 2000: Many minor changes.

23 April 2000: Found out that the Flash detect script does not work correctly in Explorer. I've
removed it for the moment and am going to rewrite it. VBScript gurus: please take a look at the script
and tell me what I'm doing wrong.

17 April 2000: Added/removed compatibility info for iCab Preview 2.0 . It doesn't crash
on this site any more, but shows some JavaScript capabilities. It still lacks support of document.images
but I suppose this is temporary.
I fixed the
browser detect so that it correctly detects iCab.
I also tested Netscape 6, but found little progress or regress from M14. The only thing is that the
auto scroll script again works (wrongly) without Netscape
hiding all scrollbars forever.

27 March 2000: Added/removed compatibility info for Explorer 5 on Mac, final release. Also
changed the description on the browser page. Generally this release is MUCH better
than the beta I discussed two weeks ago.

22 March 2000: Added some information about Opera 4 on Windows to the
browser page. Strange: While Opera 4 for Linux supports two
DOM's (document.getElementById and document.all), the Windows
version only supports document.getElementById.

10 March 2000: Added Explorer 5 on Mac compatibility info where necessary. See the
browser page for more information.

2 March 2000: Added Netscape 5 M14 compatibility info where necessary. It finally executes
the Transfer options script correctly but has developed a brand
new bug in the auto scroll script.

25 February 2000: Downloaded the newest version of the iCab browser for the Mac. Theoretically
it supports JavaScript, so I added it to my browser page.
I also discuss Opera 4 for Linux (Alpha), since a colleague of mine downloaded it.

20 February 2000: Finished the page about the JavaScript Browsers.
Changed the style sheet. I think the site is now better readable.

13 February 2000: Added a page about the JavaScript Browsers. It includes a few paragraphs about the
trouble I've had with this site and Netscape 4.

25 January 2000: Finally found the reason why this site sometimes crashes Netscape 4:
it's because of the border declarations in the style sheet of the navigation frame. I removed them.
Created a new category: Date and time. I added a script to calculate the
week number.

Netscape 4 crashing problem finally solved.

13 January 2000: Added a millennium proof date script that makes sure that your pages
show the correct year even in older browsers.

19 December 1999: Added a bit about JavaScript Includes
to the Placing JavaScripts page.
Many minor changes.

11 December 1999: Did a major reworking of the
browser detect script,
including a bit on why not to use a browser detect.

4 December 1999: Added a Building Block page about functions.
Added a new way of circumventing the DOM differences on the
Introduction to DHTML page.
Added a bit about the limitations of JavaScript in forms.
Made slight adjustments to the Boolean logic page on the urging of
a friend who studies philosophical Logic.
Many minor changes to other pages.

20 November 1999: Added a whole new category: Building blocks, where I explain
some fundamental JavaScript statements.
At the moment there are two pages in it:
the statements page where if() and for()
are explained and an introduction to Boolean logic, which includes a
Boolean generator that you can use to make and evaluate your own Boolean statements.

Here ends the Time of Trouble when I wrestled with Netscape 4, although the problem wasn't yet
completely solved. For an explanation, see the browsers page under Netscape 4.

1 November 1999: I uploaded yet again a new navigation page and an index
that give the display: block effect in browsers that support it and that won't crash Netscape 4 (I hope).
I also added a script to the Forms category: the Transfer options script.

19 October 1999: Rest has settled on the site. I ran into some trouble
(see the History of this site, also an addition)
when trying to implement a new navigation on the basis of the new
display: block
script. It has been
described now, but is not yet perfect and may crash Netscape 4.
I also added a general Introduction to DHTML and
a page about the DOM, so that the DHTML section has been
expanded considerably.

13 October 1999: Ditched the new navigation and restored the old one with a new look for Netscape 4.
The background is not very nice, but it'll have to do until something better comes along.
Explorer 4/5, Opera and Netscape 5 do retain the new navigation since it works fine for them.
Earlier today: Minor changes to the homepage. I hope this will solve the Netscape 4 bug.

12 October 1999: Ditched the display: block for Netscape 4: it was too dangerous. Nonetheless I kept
it online for reference purposes.

11 October 1999: A wrong upload forced me to reveal the reworking of the site I was planning to
release somewhere next week. There will certainly be some errors somewhere,
I'll remove them as soon as possible.
As you can see the navigation has changed. Now it uses what I call the display: block script. The
explanation of this script is not yet ready.
I entirely rewrote the mouseover image-swap script and I partly rewrote
the onClick image swap script. The Old MouseOver script is still available in the Archives.

Here starts the Time of Trouble when I wrestled with Netscape 4. For an explanation, see the
browsers page under Netscape 4.

30 October 1998: First announcement of this site to the
WDF mailing list. I
created the site in the week before this announcement.
It only included the old MouseOver and onClick script, the archived scripts except
for display and the Placing JavaScript pages.